Chapter 39
Lily felt the air change as soon as she left Pippin Cottage. As if nature herself was grieving Gran’s death. The clear, brilliant days of summer were gone and it hadn’t stopped raining in the four days since she passed.
Just days earlier, the trees that had been a riot of reds and golds now stood naked, their skeletal branches pointing towards a leaden sky.
A stinging wind carrying the promise of cold murmured through the village.
Feeling the cold sink into her bones, Lily tightened her cardigan around her as she sat looking at Gran’s empty armchair.
The funeral had to be organised and everyone in the village wanted to come, and Gran, never one for religion, would have wanted everyone to be welcome and have some of Mrs Douglas’s shortbread and a cup of tea, so it was agreed with Peter and Denise it was to be held in the village hall.
But now she felt so alone. Even though the heater was on and Mr Mistoffelees was sitting on Gran’s chair, purring happily, the cottage, once so vibrant and cosy, now seemed empty and chilly.
That morning her phone buzzed for the umpteenth time. Lily turned it over, as she had been doing for the preceding few days. She grudgingly grabbed it when it started ringing, though, seeing Paul’s name on the screen. She had been avoiding his calls but she knew she had to answer now.
‘Hello?’ Even to her own ears her speech sounded hollow.
‘Lily! At last!’ Paul’s speech seemed way too cheerful for her present state of mind. ‘I’ve tried to get in touch to you. Listen, we should discuss the auditions.’
Lily closed her eyes, feeling like a headache was developing. ‘Paul, my grandmother passed away and I have the funeral, so I won’t be able to come next week. I know it’s inconvenient but it’s important.’
There was a pause. ‘Was that the old lady at the show? With the oxygen tank?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Lily said rolling her eyes at how rude he was.
‘How old was she?’ he asked.
‘Ninety-seven.’
‘So it’s not a surprise then,’ he said.
‘Pardon?’ Lily wondered if she had just heard that correctly. ‘She might have been ninety-seven but she was still—’
Paul interrupted, ‘Listen, I get you loved her and so on, I do, but understand – these auditions, they don’t happen every day.
The directors of Phantom and Les Mis have committed to seeing you next week and they’re looking forward to it.
I’ve been talking you up. This is a huge opportunity for you. ’
‘I can’t not be at my grandmother’s funeral,’ she said, feeling firmer in her decision. His voice was exasperated as he spoke.
‘I’m not sure you understand, Lily. If you don’t come to these auditions, then I can’t represent you anymore.’
Lily thought she had been slapped.
‘Paul,’ she said, her voice quivering with restrained feeling. ‘I appreciate everything you have done, but my grandmother was everything to me, so I will be here, not in London.’
She could hear him draw a sharp intake of breath.
‘You know when Jessica told me to come and see you, I said that I was worried you were a flake. I was going to let you go as I heard the rumours about Les Mis , but she insisted you were still a talent and she was right. I mean she just wanted you to get out of the village so she could get back with that nurse you’re both fighting over, but I remembered that talent I saw when you left college, and you are talented – unlike Jessica.
She can’t sing for shit but now, you want to throw this chance away? I don’t understand it.’
Lily held the phone to her ear, her mind going at one hundred miles an hour.
‘Jessica told you to come?’ she heard herself screech down the line.
‘Yeah, she did,’ Paul said. ‘We dated for a while. I got her some auditions but she’s not very good, terrific in other ways though.’ He laughed and Lily looked at the phone and hung up.
‘What a prick,’ she said to the cat and then she dialled Nick’s number. Her hands were shaking but from anger, and she was so mad, she started to punch the cushions on the sofa.
‘Hey, how are you?’ he answered immediately.
‘I’m in shock,’ she said with a punch to the cushion.
‘I know, it’s hard but it will become more bearable as time goes on,’ he said in his kind way.
‘Not about Gran,’ said Lily quickly.
‘What?’ Nick seemed confused.
Lily was pacing now in the living room.
‘Paul, he wanted me to skip Gran’s service, said I should have seen it coming because she was so old, and come to London for the auditions and act like nothing happened.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Nick. ‘What an absolute prick…’
‘I just said that to the cat, but it gets worse,’ she said.
‘How?’ Nick’s voice was incredulous.
‘He told me he and Jessica used to date and he got her some auditions. That’s why she was at Les Mis when my voice went, and she wanted him to get me out of the village so Jessica could come back for you.’
‘You can’t be serious?’ Nick’s voice was furious.
‘I am serious and I tell you that woman is such a liar. She’s honestly like the villain in every show ever made.’
‘She is out of control,’ said Nick. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be, it’s not your fault,’ she said, starting to calm down at the sound of his voice.
‘So how did you leave it? Are you going to go to London?’ he asked.
Lily laughed, her first real laugh since Gran had passed.
She went to the window and looked out at the half-done garden, the apples all over the ground, the blackbird dancing along the back fence.
‘It just reminded me of everything I hate about that world. I know not every agent is like Paul and not every co-star is like Jessica, but I already have my happily ever after. Why would I throw it all away for a long-run eight shows a week in London?’
‘Don’t do it for me, Lily,’ said Nick. ‘You have to be sure this is what you want. I told you I would go anywhere with you.’
Lily looked up at the picture on the mantelpiece of her and Gran with their daisy chains on their heads and the piano net to the window and Mr Mistoffelees purring on the chair.
‘I’m home, Nick, so hurry home to me as soon as you can. I want to get this show on the road. I have so much I want to do here in the cottage and in the garden. I want to make a life here.’
‘Did Gran leave you the cottage?’ Nick asked innocently and Lily stopped.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t even thought about it. God, what if Dad wants to sell it. I will have to try and buy it. Would he let me buy it?’ she asked, feeling panic rise up in her throat at the thought of losing the cottage.
What if this was all for nothing? All these hopes and dreams and the cottage was never going to be hers?
She couldn’t even bear to think about it.